Happy Pacman 30th anniversary! This classic arcade game was released on this day in 1980 and remains popular to this day. A Google doodle celebrating PAC-MAN’s 30th Anniversary shows how far the iconic yellow character has come over the years. Here’s a look at the game that started it all.
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How did it all start?
In 1980, Namco began developing a new arcade game by Tōru Iwatani. The project began under the code name Puck-Man based on an earlier arcade game he made known as Ball Boy, with many of its elements later becoming part of Pac-Man. To commemorate Pac-Man’s 30th Anniversary, Google has created a playable version of Pac-Man for their homepage logo, which is viewable from computers and smartphones around the world.
This project was a collaboration between Google Creative Lab and numerous YouTube personalities from all over Europe. The first step in making your own playable version of Pac-Man is to create a pattern that looks like Ms Pac-Man using Adobe Illustrator or another vector editing program. Next, upload your .ai file into Vecteezy, where it will be converted into several different formats, including SVG, EPS, PNG and more!
What happened on March 31, 1980?
It wasn’t even close to midnight yet, but 1980 was about to become a very special year for a lot of people. That’s because, on March 31 of that year, Namco began showing off a new arcade game called Puck Man in Japanese arcades. The name may have been awkward, but what was inside wouldn’t be for long—the project needed a better name if it had any chance of success outside Japan and after some deliberation, it came up with Pac-Man. It took over six months for Nintendo to acquire distribution rights (and rebranding rights) and another six months before sales began taking off around North America—but once they did, they didn’t stop.
By 1982, Pac-Man was everywhere. If you were alive at that time, there’s no way you could have avoided hearing about or playing one of its many versions. And as we celebrate its 30th Anniversary today, it’s important to remember just how much impact Pac-Man has had on our culture since then…even if most people don’t realize it!
So let’s take a look back at where he came from and how he got here:
How did Pac-Man become so popular? What are some other games like Pac-Man? Who is Masaya Nakamura, creator of Pac-Man? How does he feel about his creation? Why does everyone love pizza with a side of ghosts?!
Kidding. But you can find out all that and more below!
The first video game in history
On May 22, 1980, Atari began selling Puck-Man, an arcade game based on a Japanese game called Puckman. Soon after that, Namco released its own version of Puck-Man called Pac-Man, which quickly became an international sensation. Today is Pac-Man’s 30th Anniversary, so it’s time to learn all about gaming’s first star in The Full Guide to Pacman. To truly understand Pacman, you have to know where he came from and why he was such a breakthrough in gaming. Below you’ll find the history of both Puck-Man and Pacman and what makes them so special.
The origins of PacMan 30th anniversary
it was 30 years ago today that Pac-Man (or Puck Man, if you prefer) made its arcade debut. It would go on to become a cultural phenomenon, one of those rare moments when even Grandma could tell you about a video game. And though it’s been reworked and reimagined several times in the decades since, one thing remains true: Pac-Man is an icon of gaming history.
How did Pacman 30th anniversary come to be? According to Kotaku, Midway designed their own maze-chase games during the development of Ms. Pac-Man, but they felt they weren’t fun enough; then, out of nowhere, programmer Tohru Iwatani came up with an idea for Puck Man while working on another project. The name was changed because Namco had already registered Pac as part of their Rally X trademark.
How many people played PacMan?
We did a little digging and found some stats for you. According to The Game Museum, about 300 million units of Pac-Man have been sold worldwide as of December 2009, which is impressive considering that it was only 10 years ago! Also, according to them, it was estimated that a quarter of all arcade machines were Pac-Man games in North America in 1982. With more than 10,000 arcade machines distributed around North America in 1982 alone, that’s pretty impressive! By 2010, over one billion people had played Pac-Man since its release in 1980 – that’s more than 20% of Earth’s population! It has even been estimated that someone plays Pac-Man somewhere every minute of every day!
Why did the government give the project funding?
It is important that local governments support entrepreneurs in their areas. That is why they are giving them funding, so they can keep jobs and help boost businesses. If there was no funding, then projects would not get done. In today’s society, people have to make money one way or another, and if you are going to do that, it needs support. Without government help, our economy will slow down more than what it already has because everyone wants a piece of good income. It will be pretty bad for everyone if we don’t get it soon.
There is nothing wrong with trying to gain some kind of profit from your business and getting it out there as much as possible. The only thing that could possibly go wrong is if someone takes your idea, but even then, you can take legal action against them for stealing your idea. With all these things considered, I think it’s safe to say that getting funded by local government agencies will only benefit us all in some way or another.
What was Namco’s main motivation behind creating Pac-Man?
It was so popular that it prompted Pac-Man fever, which is a craze of playing or buying anything related to Pac-Man. Both Pac-Man and Miss Pac-Man have been featured in several animated television series: The Simpsons, Robot Chicken, and South Park. The original arcade game has also appeared in many other television shows, including Big Bang Theory, 2 Broke Girls, Freaks and Geeks, King of Queens, Weird Al Yankovic’s short film White & Nerdy featuring Steve Urkel from Family Matters; It was even parodied on Sesame Street. In 1982 an animated featurette called Mr.
Computer Brain (1982) premiered at The Kennedy Center as part of their first annual Computer Animation Festival. It won first prize for best animation at SIGGRAPH 1983, and was later nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. In 1999 there were plans to make a live-action/CGI movie starring Leslie Nielsen as Pac-Man, but it never got past preproduction due to legal issues with Namco, who wanted more creative control over the project than Columbia Pictures was willing to give them.
How long did it take to develop this game?
The Google Doodle team, which was formed in September 2010 and consisted of five engineers who had previously worked on various Google products, spent more than a year developing Pac-Man. The company says that one reason for developing a playable version of Pac-Man was that there were many incorrect stories about how it was created.
For example, apparently, there are some people who think Pac-Man was developed by a single programmer in just a few days.
So by putting an accurate but time-consuming version of its creation online, Google wanted to provide information about it so that false stories wouldn’t spread. It took about six months to get through initial design ideas and then another six months to develop and test out variations on them before creating an interactive version as seen today—which took about two months.
What was Namco up against when developing Pac-Man?
The development of Pac-Man came at a time when arcades were becoming increasingly competitive. In 1976, there were nearly 50,000 arcades in America, and in 1980, that number had dropped down to 34,000 and would continue to shrink over time. To top it off, Atari’s Adventure had just come out in 1979, and its stiff competition led others like Midway (Space Invaders) and Namco (Mr. Do!) to release new arcade games themselves all with little success until Pac-Man arrived on the scene in 1980 with an explosion of popularity that seemed almost impossible given how many before it failed. But then again, few things are more exciting than watching an industry giant be knocked down by someone hungry for success.
Did they have any competitors while designing Pac-Man?
Well, yes. There were numerous other similar games that came out around the same time as Pac-Man, and many of those had competitors that were competing for market share. One of those companies was Midway, and they had an extremely popular game called Ms. Pac-Man that was essentially a clone of Pac-Man, but with female characters instead of male characters and featuring new mazes for players to navigate through. Another competitor is another game designed by Namco called Galaxian, which is what inspired Pac-Man’s creation in the first place; it’s essentially a predecessor of sorts to Pac-Man because it is what led Namco to create their own version of it.
Who programmed The game from Namco Japan, and how long did it take them?
If you missed out on playing Pac-Man today, don’t fret. There are a few more ways to celebrate its big day: Visit an arcade that still has an old-school Pac-Man game, hunt down a rare (and expensive) copy of Pac-Man for the Apple II or enjoy some other video games with Pac in their titles. Though Pac-Man won’t be visiting Google Maps anymore, it will still be offering celebratory imagery and sounds for users who click on one of eight symbols arranged around a playable version of what was once everyone’s favorite pastime. Enjoy your new Google Doodle! And good luck getting through it without having flashbacks.
Did anyone outside of Namco know about this secret project at this time in history?
Pac-Man’s iconic status has survived all these years, but no one knew his face would still be recognizable today. In fact, even Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani didn’t know how popular his creation would become when he was asked to make a game in two weeks. All I did was make characters that resembled food and named them after snacks, like Gobbler and Apple, Iwatani said at an event celebrating Pac-Man’s 30th Anniversary on May 22 in Tokyo. The rest is history—or one could say prehistory—as Pac-Man went on to become one of gaming’s most successful franchises. How did it all start?
An inside look at a couple more things for Pac-Man’s 30th Anniversary
OK, so you just saw a Pac-Man logo on Google, and I bet you clicked on it (or got at least a little excited that it was something more than just a logo). As we mentioned yesterday, Google has been celebrating Pac-Man’s 30th Anniversary by using its logo all over its services. If you click on each of them, you’ll see an animation of what’s inside. Every now and then, though, they bring in their artistic skills. This time around, they did some cute drawings of Pac-Man eating his way through some of their classic games to unlock presents that contain throwback artworks. It’s pretty fun! Here are those drawings
Also read: What is Avple and How It Is Work?
PacMan Doodle Google Online
Yes, there is a Pac-Man Google Doodle. It commemorates April 22, which is Pac-Man’s 30th Anniversary (32 years, if you count its Japanese release). The special logo replaces each letter of Google with a pixelated image of an item or character from old school Pac-Man games.
From right to left:
- One e and three o’s make up an Extra Life box (you collect these in later levels).
- Y and u spell you.
- E and l create the word maze.
- G becomes one of those annoying ghosts (Blinky) chasing Pacman in later levels.
- N becomes bonus dots that sometimes appear in bonus rounds.
How to Download and Play Pacman 30th Anniversary on PC?
So, what would you say if I told you that there’s a FREE way for you to play an official Pacman game without having to pay a single penny? Well, brace yourself because it’s completely true. All you need is an Android or iOS device, an active internet connection and a few moments of your time. So, let’s see how we can download and play Pacman on PC for free. You will first have to open up Google Play Store on your smartphone and search for Pacman 30th Anniversary.
Once you find it, just tap on install and wait until the installation completes. If you are using iPhone, then just go to App Store and search for Pacman 30th Anniversary from there. Once found, tap the install button, which will start downloading of the app in background mode (you don’t have to wait until the installation completes). Once installation completes, then go back to the home screen of your phone and launch the Pacman app from a list of apps installed in your phone. That’s all! You are now ready to play PacMan anywhere anytime! Have fun! 🙂
Conclusion
Though some may have already forgotten, Pac-Man’s still one of those classic video games. It’s kind of nice for a game that was pretty old when I was a kid to make it Pacman’s 30th Anniversary on. If you take away anything from today’s post, let it be that celebrating something as fun and old as Pac-Man might just help you remember what you love about your job. Happy birthday, Pac-Man!
